With the advent of social media, we keep on updating our keens and friend circle with our daily life happenings. This is truer when someone is on a vacation, attending events or doing interesting stuff. We are regularly updated with the images and videos of our friends getting into college, graduating from college, being offered jobs and switching roles. Many of my peers are getting married, and they always make sure to share this news through social media channels. Even private moments like honeymoons are getting broadcasted.
Social media houses understood this rising urge of sharing personal moments, and they came up with specific and sophisticated menus and tabs for the same. They keep encouraging users to build connections by sharing media. This has gone too far and has become a full-time job for many who are making handsome money out of sharing their daily life through regular vlogging posts.
What I have discussed above is not new. Everyone knows all these. The issue at hand is why. Why do people feel like sharing their life events? Why do we all feel this urge to share? Whether it is suffering, an achievement, or any other feeling, we feel the need to share. We all have this inherent need to share what we are going through. This need is more relevant for happy moments. Many don’t want others to know of their struggling phase. But, sadly, that’s the moment or phase of life when we severely need someone at our side to share and lighten our psychological baggage. Perhaps people don’t like to be fed negative news; at the same time, the cases of doomscrolling can’t be ignored. This signals toward something significant. We developed as a society not out of exuberance or gala days but because of our inherent call for survival. When one goes through rough days, their biological system strives to have someone by their side. If we look at human history, we’ll discover that we survived various disastrous phases because we could come together and fight through them.
Ironically, despite the increasing accessibility of connections and media, we are becoming more and more distant from one another. People had never been this lonely. Most of us have hundreds of virtual friends but can hardly count anyone in times of need. Many of us might have felt like having a long heart-to-heart conversation with someone but, while surfing through our contacts, find no one well-suited. Dostoevsky expresses this feeling well in The Idiot:
“I want to talk about everything with at least one person as I talk about things with myself.”
We are going through a phase with a dearth of deep and intense conversations. This is dangerous not just for individual mental health but also for the larger society and our democratic setup. Even couples are not having intimate conversations. They too are lost in idle chit chats. This is seriously damaging our relationships and social cohesion.
We avoid sharing our harsh and arduous days out of fear of not being understood and mocked as being debilitated and flimsy. This furthers the pain of struggling.
“Do you know, Nastenka, what it means to have no one to whom one could say, ‘I am suffering’?”
This line from White Nights captures the longing and pain of not having anyone to count on in rainy days.
This discussion can go on and on. Recently, I was going through a book on depression and mental health. What was highlighted throughout the book on and above medication was the need of someone who can be relied upon. This mere sense of someone by our side not only subsides our distress but also gives us confidence and fortitude to deal with any hardship. At the end, I can wind it up with a plea to be someone’s ear and shoulder to rely on.